64 THE FUR SEALS OF THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 
the greatest comfort, rocked by the gentle swell. In such calm days as occur during 
the months of September and October the water off the rookery fronts and sand 
beaches is literally black with the swimming and sleeping pups. Occasionally older 
seals at this time, aud more frequently earlier in the season, are to be seen in the 
same position. 
THEIR ATTITUDES. 
An interesting feature about the fur seal in its naps on the rookery is the 
variety of attitudes which it assumes. The sleeping animals assume every conceivable 
shape and position. One animal is stretched out at full length on its back, another 
on its side, still another on its stomach. Again, the hind flippers may be tucked 
up under the body, the foreflippers outstretched. These conditions may be exactly 
reversed. Or the hind flippers may be waving lazily in the air like a fan. On a 
day when the sun shines for a few minutes the seal lies prone upon the ground with 
its flippers in the air. The sight of thousands upon thousands of the animals thus 
stretched out, almost gasping for breath and with every hind flipper waving in the 
effort to keep cool, is a most interesting one. 
The seals enjoy the rocks. They do not care for a smooth and even bed. The 
body has a wonderful power of adaptation to its rocky bed of water-worn bowlders 
One cow finds a flat rock on which she curls up and lets her head hang over the side 
at a most reckless angle. Another lies with her head elevated upou a rock, as though 
on a pillow. A favorite position among the animals is to sleep sitting up with the 
head thrown back and the body wavering with the respirations as if it would fall. 
On vookeries where perpendicular cliffs form the back ground the animals are to be 
found stowed away on little shelves and in little angles where it is a wonder they can 
keep their positions at all. 
THE COLORATION. 
There is more or less diversity in the coloration of the various animals, which 
lends interest to the picture of rookery life. The little pups are at birth shiny black 
with a white spot in the axil. Some of them show a brownish shade along the throat 
and belly. In September they shed their black coats and don coats of gray, which, 
under the action of the weather, soon change into the brownish or combination brown 
and silvery color of the adults. 
On her first landing the adult female is dark, slightly olivaceous, gray. Under 
exposure to the weather, and especially the sunshine, she turns to a rusty reddish 
brown, somewhat darker on the back, lighter on the throat and belly. The great 
uniformity of this coloration, as seen among the cows during June of 1897 before they 
had begun to go to sea, confirms the belief that these darker colors, as a rule, go with 
the older animals. 
About the middle of July, the time at which the younger bachelors begin to 
appear in greatest number, the rookeries also show large numbers of animals which 
in their silvery throats and bellies contrast sharply with the animals already present. 
Their backs present the same dark-brown shade, but the silvery gray underneath the 
body is entirely different. Their small size, the black whiskers, and the lateness of 
their arrival proclaim them to be younger animals. But not all the younger animals 
are of this sort, as two virgin females killed side by side were each of a distinct type 
